Miss Me Not

"I'm serious," he insisted. "My mom told me while you were in the bathroom that you're a sweet girl."

I snorted at his words. "Sweet? She wouldn't think that if she knew me," I said sarcastically before turning back to my window.

"Mads, why are you so hard on yourself?" he asked exasperated as he pulled into my driveway.

"Dean, stop acting dumb. Even if you don't believe half the stories about me, you can't deny the ones that do count. For God's sake, I once made an entire church congregation split down the middle. I broke up a church. Is that something a sweet girl would do?"

"Cut the shit, Madison. Churches split all the time. What makes you so certain yours split because of you?" Dean argued.

"Because I had sex with the youth minster!" I spit out before opening my door.

By the lack of shock on his face, I could tell he already knew. Of course he did. Everyone knew. The box of poison notes in the Coffin under my bed proved that. For an entire year, I had endured crumpled up papers filled with hatred being chucked at my head. Everyone knew most of my secrets, but they didn't know all of them.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not on your life," I said, climbing out of the jeep.

Dean climbed out of the vehicle and trailed me to the front door. "When does your mom come home?" he asked.

"I don't know, eleven or so. She doesn't have to get up early tomorrow, so Friday nights are always late. Why?" I asked, confused that he'd changed the subject so abruptly. It took a moment for it dawn on me. He was so disgusted by my adolescent actions he'd prefer to ignore them. I didn't blame him, since that's pretty much what I had been doing for the last four years.

"I don't like you being home alone at night," he said, taking my keys from me so he could walk through the door first.

His concern was laughable.

"Don't be an ass. I've been home alone almost every night for the last four years," I said, trailing behind him.

"Do you want me to hang out until she gets home?" he asked, worriedly scoping out my house to make sure no one was hiding in the shadows.

Although I felt like I'd been put through the wringer tonight, I couldn't help being touched at his protectiveness.

"God, no. Donna would have a coronary. I'm not supposed to have friends over," I admitted.

"For how long?" he asked, finally done checking the area where we were standing.

"For as long as I live here. It's never really been an issue since she's never here to check. Anyway, with the exception of you and my friend James coming over a few times, it hasn't been a hard rule to follow."

"What is she: a warden or a mom?" he grumbled, heading down the hall.

"Hey, where are you going?" I yelped.

"I'm checking to make sure the rest of the house is clear before I leave you alone," he said through gritted teeth.

"That's pretty sweet of you, but seriously, Dean, you can't come over every night to make sure my house is safe," I said.

"Maybe not, but I'll be damned if I'm going to drop you off in a dark house that anyone could have broken into while you were out."

"You watch a lot of horror flicks, don't you?" I said as he scoured the rest of the house.

I held my breath when he entered my room. My sanctuary. The one place that no one else entered. Four years ago, I had ripped the room apart, trying to erase what I had done. It no longer resembled the room it once had, but as Dean slowly walked around the space, I felt as if he could see through the facade.

"Nice," he said simply before heading out and back down the hall. "Looks all clear. Text me if you hear anything suspicious," he said.

"I'm a big girl, Dean. You don't need to swoop in and save the day."

"Humor me, okay?" he said, standing by the front door.

"Fine, but you're being ridiculous."